perfect
by Sirius.Black.licks.my.back
Summary: I OWN NOTHING THE CHARACTERS LOCATIONS AND WHAT NOT ARENT MINE THEY ARE J.K.R's the only thing thats mine is the story idea. Remus and Hermione bond over a dark secret and the bond of friendship saves her life. mentions self harm


Perfect

Perfect, which is what Hermione was expected to be. She had always had top marks in Muggle School and now in Hogwarts. Hermione's parent's career had also pushed the drive for perfection. At first, her parents expected her to follow their example but the letter from Hogwarts changed everything. To be allowed to go to Hogwarts she had to agree to keep up with her muggle schooling or else her parents would not allow it. Ron and Harry would run off and play while she spent hours trying to finish all of her work. Her mum had set her up for online muggle schooling. She would mail Hermione the work after printing it out and have her daughter mail it back. No one knew of her situation because she feared that her parents would get angry and ban her from attending Hogwarts. Besides Hermione was never one to complain about anything.

It was the summer before her 5th year and everyone was at Gimmmauld place. Dumbledore had requested that everyone spend as much time as possible there. The head master thought that surrounding Sirius with friends would help slow down his growing insanity, sadly, it did not. Sirius was harmless; he mostly drank and called people by the wrong name. It was clear to everyone to pain it caused Harry when his godfather would call him James. Ginny (whom Sirius would call lily) learned to laugh it off and not bother to correct the man. Remus was also living with Sirius, not really out of choice but more so, because no one would hire him and he had no money. Remus loved Sirius, he always would, but it made him sad to see what his friend had become.

The problem was that Remus became Sirius' baby sitter. Sirius spent most of his days in his dog form, playing fetch and drooling everywhere. It gave him the chance to forget everything that had happened for a few minutes. Remus and Hermione would sit outside and watch harry play fetch with padfoot for hours, neither ever becoming bored. It made Remus feel sad. It was obvious that the poor boy never had anyone to play with growing up at his aunt and uncle's house. Hermione reminded Remus of himself. She is a hard worker, the brains of the group and had a death wish for perfection. Remus had tried to be perfect in school, in his mind it would make up for being a monster. Hermione tried to be perfect because she is a muggle born, in the wizarding world's eyes she had something to prove.

It was two weeks until the children went back to school and the days were going by fast. Ron and Harry had gone to bed early and soon everyone else was sleeping. Except Sirius and Hermione, Sirius would sit there night after night and watch her work. Drinking his whiskey, he would sometimes search through textbooks and help her find the answers and sometimes he would make her tea and watch her. Hermione secretly loved the help. It was rare anyone would help her and Sirius would never tell anyone about her double workload. On the odd night, Sirius would become childish and beg Hermione to read him a children's fairy tale. On those nights, she would also tuck him in and sing to him. She felt terrible for him, she understood that he was losing his grip on reality and kept her promise to never tell a soul about it.

On this night around two in the morning, Sirius got up from his chair, gave her a sloppy drunk kiss on the head and went to bed. Hermione listened for his footsteps and once she was sure he was sleeping her went into panic mode. There is so much work she still had left to do, owls were coming up soon and she still had not gotten her muggle exam marks back yet. Her head was spinning and she needed it to stop. Getting up off her chair, she looked around the kitchen. Walking to the sink, she grabbed a knife in the drawer beside her and pulled it out. The blade twinkled in the dim light. Rolling up her sleeves, she brought the knife down on the scared skin. Slashing away, crimson ran down her arm and dripped into the sink. Hermione cut until her body felt numb and her mind was silenced. She did not hear the footsteps coming down the stair nor did she hear the gasp that followed.

Remus had been awoken by another nightmare, nothing new for him. He had always had nightmares before the full moon. Getting up he walked down stairs planning on making a tea. He had not expected to see Hermione. Running over to her side he said, "Hermione please put down the knife" in a soft whisper. The knife dropped into the sink with a clank. Hermione stared blankly at him, as if he was not real. "Snap out of it Hun your safe now". Hermione began to cry " please don't tell anyone I swear I won't do it again I just needed to focus and I- "Remus put his hand up cutting her off mid-sentence." Hermione its okay I know, I know". A sad look was in his eyes as he wrapped a tea towel around her arm tightly. She sat down at the table and Remus made them tea. Remus sat down beside her and rolled up his sleeves. "You see, while I was in school I was like you. I tried so hard to be perfect, to do everything right. Sadly, it just made everything so much worse. I thought I could bleed the evil out. Like if I bled enough I deserved to actually be at school. I had the hope that if I was perfect no one would care about my monthly problem. Around my first year I started cutting" his pale wrists were covered in angry scars twisting and over lapping one another. With a lazy flick of his wand, he had a first aid kit in him hands. Carefully he began to care for her wounds. "The cutting went on for years. James and Sirius would hide blades and try not to leave me by myself for more than ten minutes at a time. It didn't stop me but there school marks went up the more time we spent together. After school had ended I had lost everything. I had never felt more alone. I had cut to deep one day and was bleeding to death on the floor. I was so scared. I never wanted to die I just wanted to make shit stop. Luckily, Dumbledore came to check on me and saved my life. It wasn't easy but after years of working through some painful issues I got better and you can to" By the end of his tale Hermione had tears in her eyes. "I don't want to die Remus; I just don't want to feel this way anymore." Remus hugged his former student "I know but it's not that easy and cutting won't help, it will lead to more problems and possibly death. You have cut deeply tonight, anymore and we would have had an emergency. I wrapped it up but I am afraid I will not always be here to help you. I won't make you promise to stop, I know that doesn't work all I will ask is that you let me help you deal with this and get help" Hermione nodded" I will," she promised. Remus gave her a tired smile and they both went to bed.

Hermione did get help but it took a lot of work and a few years before she completely stopped. Remus stayed by her side and helped her all the way to recovery. His words of encouragement stayed with her throughout the final battle. He had died in the war but his loved had saved her life.  
It was a cold winter morning in November and Hermione was seen walking towards a grave. She went to her former teacher's grave, kissed the tombstone and said "thank you for saving me". As she walked away, a dull razor blade sat in her place.


End file.
